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Winrock International, NACCFL and Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood Programme/Alternative Energy Promotion Center jointly organized two-day Knowledge Exchange Workshop on Solar Water Pumping (SWP) System including field visit to SWP system installed site on 20 - 21 January 2019. The event was organized as part of Knowledge Exchange to make SWP affordable to Small Farmer project funded by WISIONS.
A total of 53 participants (21 female and 32 male) attended the workshop. Chairperson, Manager and other board members from eight SFACLs, Ward Chairperson, engineers and senior agricultural officer from (rural) municipalities, representatives from six SWP system supplier companies, farmers having installed SWP systems and Manager of SFACL who promotes SWP , representatives from NACCFL, Livelihood Expert from AEPC/RERL and Winrock International project team participated the workshop.
The first day of the workshop was organized at Darcy’s International Hotel, Butwal Municipality and a field visit to SWP site was organized in Ratanpur, Bharatpur Municipality on the second day. Ms. Resha Piya, Senior Program Officer from Winrock International delivered a presentation on SWP system technology, its working principle, advantages, disadvantages, impacts and business models and financial models to install SWP system. Four farmers with installed SWP systems for dairy farm, homestay, sugarcane farming and vegetable farming under Winrock’s Accelerated Commercialization Solar Photovoltaic Water pumping (AC-PVWP) project shared their experiences, success stories, challenges of using SWP system. In addition, six solar companies shared their business proposition including SWP product details, size, price, warranty, financial schemes from the company etc. On the second day, field visit was carried out to SWP system installed site for practical observation on how the system functions and interact with the farmer on its use and benefits.
The workshop was very successful on sharing knowledge and experience of promoting and using SWP systems.

Winrock International conducted technical meeting on small water infrastructure insurance for USAID project partners in Summit Hotel. The meeting brought three insurance companies together and facilitated discussions on potentiality and possibility of small water infrastructure insurance.

Winrock project team visited Butwal for the meeting with Chairman and management team of Janauthan Samudayek Lagubitta Bikash Bank Ltd. (JSLBBL), conducted branch visit and held center meeting for Increasing Rural Access to Finance for Productive Energy Use project under DFID funded Sakchyam project.
The team held meeting with senior management to track project progress and carried out branch visit to Murgiya of Butwal. During the visit, Winrock project team realized the need of continuous mentoring and guidance to JSLBBL. In addition, the project team suggested JSLBBL to collect technology-wise demand of each branch and focus on demand-based marketing along with live technology demonstrations from vendor to promote Climate Resilient Technologies. Further, the team carried out branch visit (Rampur Colony) and conducted center meeting in Murgiya.

Winrock International in partnership with Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood/Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (RERL/AEPC) empowered the micro hydropower user’s committee through the Knowledge Exchange Program funded by WISIONS, which selected five weak micro hydro plants in the Baglung and Gulmi district. Chachlaghat MHP was one of those selected.
Chachalghat MHP is situated in Badigad Rural Municipality-08 of the Baglung District. It has a capacity of 100 kilowatts and has been operating since 2013. But the plant was losing money because of weak office management, unorganized tariff collections, an unclear accounting system and irregular power supply.

Maya Ghalan is piloting her electric vehicle along the bumpy roads of Kathmandu, Nepal. In the last 15 years, she has logged thousands of miles in the scrappy three-wheeled electric minibus the Nepalis call a safa tempo. It’s part of an improbable fleet of more than 700 electric vehicles that have been plying the streets of Kathmandu for over 20 years.

Winrock International and Nepal Agricultural Co-operative Central Federation Ltd. (NACCFL) jointly visited Nawalpur, Rupandehi and Kapilvastu districts from 21-27 November 2018 to understand potential of solar water pumping (SWP) system . Ms. Resha Piya and Ms. Nira Bhatta from Winrock International and Mr. Kapil Gautam from NACCFL and representatives from SWP companies visited as a team.
The team interacted with board members and managers of 8 Small Farmer Agricultural Cooperative Limited (SFACLs) located at Aghauli, Dumkibas, Kumarwarti, Dudharakchya, Saljhandi, Semlar and Barkulpur to assess the performance of SFACLs and their readiness to promote and provide credit to their members to install SWP systems for agriculture . The team carried out focus group discussions with farmers and also visited some of the potential farms to observe and understand exixting water pumping technologies and issues related to its operation and maintenance; type of crop and livestock; and farmer’s interest to adopt SWP systems.
The team also carried out consultations with local elected representatives including Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Chairperson, Ward Chairpersons of Kawasoti Municipality, Butwal Sub Metropolitan city, Sainamaina Municipality, Binaya Triveni Rural Municipality and Buddhabhumi Municipality to assess interest of local government to promote SWP systems in their areas and budget allocation for agriculture.
In addition, the team discussed on existing knowledge of SFACL’s board members, farmers and local elected representatives on SWP technologies, its application, benefits, supply chain, price, operation and repair and maintenance during consultation process. Field visit revealed that SFACL’s board members, farmers and local elected representatives has limited information on SWP systems. Most of them are aware about SWP systems but only few have seen the systems operating. All SFACLs are found to be interested to promote and provide credit to SWP system for agriculture to their farmers but they were curious about water discharge quantity and maintenance requirement of the system. Likewise, farmers were also interested but their concerns were on cost/benefit analysis of existing system versus SWP. Similarly, local representatives seemed positive towards promoting SWP systems in their areas. Currently, none of the municipalities have allocated budget for solar pumping system promotion in this fiscal year. However, they mentioned that if there is request from community they can provide support from budget allocated for agricultural purpose.
Winrock will design Knowledge Exchange Workshop to lessen the existing knowledge gap of all stakeholders and promote appropriate SWP system to meet the requirement and need of farmers.

The Katowice Climate Change Conference included 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the UNFCCC, the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) and the third part of the first session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1-3).
The conference included the 49th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), and the seventh part of the first session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA 1-7).
In addition, action events on human settlements, industry, transport, water, oceans and coastal zones, energy, and land use convened. Roundtables held on:
- finance and climate action;
- SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and climate;
- SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and climate;
- resilience and climate action;
- land use, water and energy;
- oceans and coastal zones and transport; and
- SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) and climate.

Renewable Energy Project Support Office (REPSO-Nepal) of Winrock International organized residential workshop for New Business Review and Planning on September 28 to 29, 2018 at Country Villa of Nagarkot, Nepal. The workshop reflected on existing New Business Strategy of 2018, developed strategy for remaining months of 2018 and 2019 with potential project pipelines and finalized result framework of concepts